The demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes has definitely impacted India’s consumption story with several consumer companies cutting down on their ad and promotional spends. However, fintech players are seeing huge uptake and are going all out to woo customers by spending thousand of crores on campaigns and advertisements to educate people on the usage of e-wallets and digital transactions.

According to two advertisement research firms, all major mobile wallet players together would spend up to ₹1,400 crore in the next six months on ads across television, digital, print and radio, along with huge promotional offers, including cash-backs.

Vikas Katoch, founder and CEO of media agency Adomantra said: “Demonetisation has proved to be a boon for digital wallet companies, and there has been a higher adoption and increase in awareness of digital wallets, as a substitute to cash. Consequently, digital wallets are spending a huge chunk of their budget on advertising, to stay ahead of the competition.

“From implementing 360-degree ad campaigns to launching new online video advertisements, digital wallets are creating a buzz and gaining consumer confidence through multiple components of advertising.”

This advertising is also likely to impact their revenues in positive, he said.

360-degree campaigns

Leading and well-funded players such as Paytm, FreeCharge, Oxigen, ItzCash and MobiKwik have already started giving out huge ads in print media, and are expected to soon roll out television ads for better reach. While many players did not wish to comment on their marketing spend, MobiKwik said it plans to spend around ₹30 crore in the next three months, and would increase it further. Alibaba-backed Paytm plans to spend around ₹50-60 crore in the next few months, according to sources.

Meanwhile, new entrants such as Ola Money and Flipkart’s PhonePe are also aggressively pushing their products in the market. Cab aggregator Ola, which launched its wallet early this year for paying cab drivers, has now extended the wallet for other purposes — from food ordering and recharges to bill payments. It is expected to soon roll out a full service. Telecom major Airtel’s Money and ICICI Bank’s Pockets are also stepping up their marketing spends.

Baskar Subramanian, co-founder of digital and media agency Amagi said he expects B2C digital-wallet and fintech companies to double their ad spends on a weekly basis.

Going ‘phygital’

Bhavik Vasa, Chief Growth Officer, ItzCash, said: “At ItzCash, we work around an omni-channel approach; hence our campaigns and programmes endorse ‘phygital’ as the new and most promising platform to suit India’s diverse needs.”

At present, there are about 69 digital-wallet players in the country, according to start-up research firm Tracxn. Of this, only 10-12 major players have been able to tap the growing e-wallet market.

According to a report by Assocham and market research firm RNCOS, the number of mobile payment transactions in India is likely to witness a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of over 90 per cent to reach 153 billion by FY2022 as against a meagre 3 billion in FY 2016.

“Mobile payment transaction value in India is also likely to register over 150 per cent CAGR and cross ₹2,000 trillion by FY 2022, from just over ₹8 trillion as of FY 2016,” the study said, adding that flagship government initiatives such as Digital India, together with the demonetisation move, will act as key catalysts and enablers of this transformation.

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